


'tis the damn flu season

by swiftmanu



Category: Political RPF, Political RPF - France 21st c.
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic, accidental angst, but no pandemic because i say so, schmoop at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:22:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28679580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swiftmanu/pseuds/swiftmanu
Summary: Emmanuel is ill and Manuel finds himself taking care of him.Or, Manuel has a crisis while Emmanuel coughs pathetically in the background.
Relationships: Emmanuel Macron/Manuel Valls
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	'tis the damn flu season

**Author's Note:**

> loosely inspired by Macron's self-isolation, but in this case he's just got a generic flu and there is no pandemic for the sake of my escapist sanity

**_need to reschedule_ **

Manuel's phone vibrated and he gritted his teeth, swallowing a string of curse words. The world may revolve around Monsieur Le Président, but that didn't mean that blowing him off on such short notice was anything other than incredibly fucking rude. Plus ça change. And he couldn’t even summon the courtesy to use a full sentence, the bastard. Well, Manuel was already here, and he had no intention of leaving without getting his audience. All he’d asked for was ten minutes, damnit, and the world clearly wasn’t on fire – what other reason could possibly excuse this?

The respectful, reasonable thing to do would be to call him and argue his case, but Manuel was tired of being respectful and reasonable. He’d suffered enough indignity at the hands of his former colleague, and wasn’t about to be dismissed again.

He knew the gilded corridors of the Elysée Palace like the back of his hand, and knew that he had it within him to summon up enough of an aura of authority to march around like he still belonged there. Briefly, he entertained storming up to the Salon Doré, breaking the door down, and claiming the seat that was once within a fingertip’s reach. The property damage would be a disaster, but it would be worth it to see utter surprise wrinkle that man’s unflappable fucking face.

**_sorry_ **

Now that was unexpected. Either the world was genuinely about to catch fire, or… someone else was texting for him? But it was impossible to prise his personal phone out of his hands, the little tech geek that he was. Manuel’s heart began to thud, and for a moment he tried to convince himself that whatever that was going on was none of his business anymore, but before he’d even got to the end of the thought, he found himself striding down the corridor. He knew he was being ridiculous; he knew he’d never be able to justify himself to anyone that accosted him, but he had to know what was going on. He was just angry, that was it. Angry that he’d flown all the way from Barcelona for a ten minute conversation, only to be disregarded just like he had been for the last four years. Maybe anger didn’t usually make his palms sweat, but there was a first time for everything.

He took the stairs two at a time and tried to focus on the crescent moons that his nails were making inside his fists instead of the tightening in his throat. Eyes fixed straight ahead of him, he ignored the protestations of some scrawny member of staff who surely shouldn’t be in charge of anything security-related. The grand entrance that he’d imagined only a few minutes earlier flickered through his head as he burst – with a little more restraint – into the great Presidential office.

Emmanuel Macron sat at his desk, head bowed slightly, eyes closed. He didn’t even register the opening of the door, or its decisive thud as it closed behind his former boss. He didn’t move a muscle as notifications pinged loudly across the multiple devices in front of him. Squeezing his eyes tight, he heaved himself out of the chair and began to cough, looking utterly defeated. It was only as he lifted his head that he saw Manuel staring at him from across the room.

“What are you… I said… sent a message… didn’t I?” Emmanuel frowned and fumbled for his phone.

“You look like _death_.” Why was Manuel’s mouth so _dry_?

“Is that an observation or a threat?” he chucked weakly. “But go, I’m fine.”

Manuel clenched his fists again; he had to concentrate on something other than the pathetic state of his colleague. Former colleague.

“If you’re fine, why did you cancel my appointment?”

Emmanuel inhaled slowly and didn’t quite meet Manuel’s stony gaze.

“I’ve got an awful headache and Castaner told me to take the rest of the afternoon off. I cancelled a tele-meeting with Trudeau as well, you’re not special.”

Oh lovely, being compared to that Canadian fop. Exactly what he wanted to hear. But Emmanuel being convinced into taking even a few hours off was so out of the ordinary that he must feel as bad as he looked. As Manuel stared him down, he had to admit his face had something of a greyish tinge to it.

“You can’t be allowed near the nuclear codes like this – someone has to supervise you.” Well that wasn’t what he meant say at all. For fuck’s sake.

“I’m just going to… have soup. Lie in the dark. You want to supervise that?” He gave another hacking cough and put a hand on the back of the chair for support.

Somehow Emmanuel’s insolence was more palatable when he couldn’t put the usual bite into it. Charming, almost.

“You don’t look like you could carry a bowl of soup without spilling it all over yourself. I’m not going to let you accuse me of allowing you to scald yourself. Because we both know you would.”

Why was he even contemplating this? He’d come for a policy discussion, not to play nurse to the most arrogant man to walk the earth. And he had Christmas shopping to do afterwards, as well as drinks with his old campaign team. But he knew how much of a workaholic Emmanuel could be; how loathe he was to admit any kind of defeat. He clearly wasn’t well, and the thought of him shivering and coughing all alone made Manuel feel a bit queasy.

Manuel strode to the other exit, trying to quash the nostalgia and longing for what could have been that suddenly washed over him. For the rooms he once drank in with Hollande, and that one fateful evening when he argued a cabinet appointment for a bright-eyed former banker. Was that the worst decision he’d ever made? And longing for the rooms that he allowed himself, just once, to mentally decorate as he handed in his resignation two years later.

He blinked the dream away and turned to look at the former banker in question. The left corner of Emmanuel’s mouth lifted slightly and a pale imitation of a twinkle formed in his eye. He trudged over to Manuel, trying unsuccessfully to undo his navy tie. He crossed into his private living room and collapsed on the nearest sofa. When he didn’t hear Manuel’s distinctive footsteps follow him, he looked up to see the other man hesitate in the doorway.

“What are you, a vampire? Come in and save me from the soup, or,” another cough, “whatever.”

“Good to know you’re still a nightmare even when you’re too sick to speak properly,” Manuel muttered.

“Not sick, just…” He capitulated under Manuel’s incredulous stare. “Fine. A bit sick. Happy?”

“I’m delighted.”

Manuel crossed the threshold and took in the spacious room that structurally was no different to when it belonged to Hollande, but truly felt like Emmanuel’s now. From the pale blue walls and overflowing bookshelves, to the miniature rocket on the coffee table, and the framed photo of the 2018 World Cup victory. And the Dalí they’d once argued over after three too many glasses of Cabernet. There was a fresh citrus scent that hung gently in the air, exactly the same one as in the apartment Emmanuel had had as a mere minister. His throat started to constrict again, but in a different way this time. No damp palms though, thankfully.

He found the small kitchen easily enough, but locating the soup was a much bigger challenge. The organisation of the cupboards was baffling – who has tins in three different cupboards, each mixed with other packets? After far too much rummaging for someone who was still wrestling with himself about being here in the first place, he pulled out a lentil soup that he hoped would be inoffensive but fortifying enough.

As it simmered away on the hob, Manuel poured himself a glass of water and brought one to Emmanuel, who had kicked his shoes off and was much more horizontal than before.

“You’re not going to fall asleep right when I’m cooking for you. Sit up, come on,” Manuel said, and tried to prop up the man he still couldn’t quite bring himself to think of as Président.

“ _Ow!_ ” Emmanuel cried.

“I barely touched you!”

“Well _don’t_. It _hurts_. Everything hurts and I hate it,” he pouted, and it would have been funny, except Manuel suddenly felt a thousand miles out of his depth. He’d looked after his children when they’d been ill, he knew rationally what he needed to do, but when it was _Emmanuel_ it felt like the rule book had been ripped to shreds. He’d got this far in, he couldn’t justify walking away when Emmanuel was in this state. But what do you do when your rival, enemy, backstabber, colleague, protégé, _friend_ needs to be taken care of? How much care can you give to someone when every time you look at them you feel as hollowed out as you did the moment you found out that they ran off to chase your dream without you?

A cough became a splutter which became a groan, and Manuel was snapped back into the present moment.

“I’ll check on the soup,” he said quietly. What he had to do was simple: give him the soup, and some paracetamol, put him to bed and sit in the other room until he next needed something. Manuel could do that. It’s only what any responsible person would do. There was no reason it had to be complicated. He was just being a good friend – a better friend than Emmanuel had been to him.

While the soup bubbled away, Manuel found a baguette and cut a couple of slices. It certainly wasn’t fresh, which was a little surprising, but it was edible, and that would have to do. He ladled the soup into a bowl and took it through to his former colleague, who had his eyes closed again, but was sitting vaguely upright this time.

“Emmanuel,” Manuel called, a little more sharply than intended. His eyes flickered open and he croaked out a thanks. Manuel handed him the bowl wordlessly and sunk into the adjacent armchair. He watched Emmanuel sniff the soup suspiciously, his forehead crinkling.

“I haven’t poisoned it.”

“That’s exactly what someone who had poisoned it would say.”

Manuel fixed him with a glare, once again wondering why he was bothering to be there at all.

Emmanuel blew across a spoonful and gingerly tasted it.

“What is this? I don’t like it,” he grumbled.

“Lentil something? I don’t know? Why do you keep things you don’t like?”

“I didn’t keep you, did I?”

Manuel went cold. He couldn’t do this, not now, not ever. This had to stay unsaid. That’s the only way he’d survived it, with the tiniest space to pretend he’d had the upper hand somehow.

“You’re not in my cupboard… cabinet, ha,” he choked on the damn soup. “But I didn’t not want you.”

Whatever that was supposed to mean was still far more than Manuel wanted to deal with. He gritted his teeth and took a deep breath, rolling his shoulders back. “If you’ve finished with the soup, go get into more comfortable clothes and get into bed. I’ll bring you more water and some paracetamol.”

Emmanuel sighed and hauled himself off the sofa, still clutching the apparently offending soup.

“I thought you didn’t like it?”

“I still want it.”

“For fuck’s sake, just get into bed and don’t die on the way.”

For once in his life, Emmanuel didn’t argue, and walked carefully around Manuel and through another doorway.

A silence hung in the air, and Manuel couldn’t decide if it was genuinely tense, or if he was just too tightly wound. He took off his suit jacket, loosened his tie, and leaned back in the armchair. His gaze fell on Dalí’s _Montre Molle_. He knew that Emmanuel didn’t actually like it, he had just been disagreeing with Manuel for the sake of it, taking delight in being a contrarian little shit. But displaying a print of it in a room he surely didn’t imagine Manuel ever visiting… was it some sort of sadistic trophy? Or did he remember those wine-fuelled evenings as fondly as Manuel?

“Manuel?” came an almost-whine from the next room.

“What?”

“Will you help me?” And more quietly, “please?”

Manuel sighed heavily and followed the pathetic sound of Emmanuel’s voice.

To Manuel’s surprise, his bedroom was an odd blend of sparsely decorated but incredibly untidy. Stacks of books were on the floor, three identical shirts hung precariously on the wardrobe door, and Emmanuel was sitting on the floor in a tangle of bed sheets.

“I spilled the soup. And tried to change the sheets. But everything hurts and I’m tired.” He couldn’t quite meet Manuel’s eyes.

If the world had been different, there would have been so many jokes or biting comments Manuel could have made. But there was something about how small and defeated Emmanuel looked that tugged at his heartstrings, and all he ended up saying was, “where do you keep the clean sheets?”

Emmanuel waved towards the correct cupboard and Manuel pulled out the first sheets he came across; the mere thought of rifling through his bedding was far too intimate.

“Why don’t you get changed whilst I’m busy doing this?”

“You mean you’re not going to help me out of my clothes?”

Manuel did his utmost to not react, but could feel his traitorous face heating up.

“You’re forty-three years old; I think you can manage that by yourself,” Manuel snapped.

“Not till next week! You haven’t forgotten my birthday already, have you? So I’m not getting a present?”

Flush turning to fury, Manuel whipped around to face Emmanuel and snarled, “if you’re well enough to taunt me, you’re well enough to sort your sheets out, and everything else.”

He intended to march right out the door, but froze when he realised that his former minister was wearing nothing but underpants and a crestfallen expression.

“Please… please don’t leave.”

Everything in him was screaming at him to go; all he’d wanted was a ten minute policy discussion with someone he could barely stand to look at – he had plans this evening, dammit. But he couldn’t move a muscle.

“I’m sorry,” Emmanuel murmured, then took a shaky breath and said, “I only wanted to make you laugh. I thought that would help… me, you, whatever the fuck we are to each other anymore.” That was the longest string of words he’d said all day and he immediately doubled over in a coughing fit. Apparently Manuel’s legs decided they wanted to move now, because he crossed the room and gently steered Emmanuel to sit on the bed before his brain caught on to the fact he was holding Emmanuel’s bare shoulders. He immediately let go, as if scalded.

“Right. Put some clothes on and try not to cough up your lungs,” Manuel instructed, and tried to focus on fitting the duvet cover instead of the smooth expanse of Emmanuel’s back, fucking hell, maybe he was getting ill too. He heard the bed creak as a hopefully dressed Emmanuel collapsed onto it. After finishing the final duvet clasp, he counted ten deep breaths to pull himself together and turned round to find his personal nightmare sprawled out in a blue Équipe de France t-shirt that must have shrunk a little in the wash over the years. Manuel hated himself for knowing that it would have made Emmanuel’s eyes shine if they hadn’t been closed again. He lay the fresh duvet over his shivering, but thankfully clothed, body in a way that he hoped was careful rather than tender.

“Thank you, Manuel,” Emmanuel whispered.

“Okay. I’ll leave you to sleep now.” He flicked the light switch off and realised his palms were sweating again as he held the cold door handle.

“Wait…”

Manuel obliged.

“Would you… uh… I feel really cold… you could… lie-next-to-me? Please?”

What could he say to that? ‘No’: that’s what he could say, what he should say. One tiny syllable; it was easy. It should have been easy. So why couldn’t he? He should go, he’d done too much already. Fuck, Emmanuel was asking him to _share his bed._ Even though it would be innocent, it felt like it would be crossing a line irreversibly. But wouldn’t walking away be just as irreversible? Would he spend the rest of his life wondering what would have happened if he stayed?

Manuel had no idea how long he’d stood in the doorway deliberating. But he took a deep breath and carefully made his way towards the bed and took his shoes and tie off. He could just about make out the shape of Emmanuel under the duvet and paused as he debated how far away from him he could lie without looking like he was afraid. Gingerly, he sat down and pulled the duvet over his legs. Emmanuel said nothing, but Manuel swore he heard a hum of contentment in the dark.

A much more comfortable silence hung in the air, only punctuated by Emmanuel’s coughs.

“I meant it, you know.”

“Meant what? All you’ve done is spout nonsense.”

“I didn’t not want you. It just wouldn’t have worked, us together. We both know that. Campaigning together, I mean. You’d have killed me,” he laughed softly.

“You’d have deserved it.” That was the best thing to say. Manuel hoped desperately that Emmanuel was too out of it to hear his heart echoing loudly in his chest.

“Probably, yes.” He rolled over unceremoniously and had the nerve to _nestle_ his face in the crook of Manuel’s neck and rest his arm across Manuel’s chest. “But I needed to do this, and you never would have wanted to be under me. Work under me, I mean. So it was the only way. But I am sorry, for what it’s worth.”

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. “You could have told me. Asked if we could have worked something out. Politics aside, it was humiliating and it _hurt_.” Fuck. After years of fantasising about screaming every injustice at Emmanuel, when it came to it, all his anger dissipated into sadness. How could he be angry at him when he was like this? He needed to lighten the mood, make a joke.

“And I suppose I did end up under you, one way or another,” he tried to laugh, and prodded Emmanuel’s arm that had somehow snuck up to gently hold on to Manuel’s shoulder.

“You’re surprisingly comfortable.” He shifted more of his weight onto Manuel’s chest, and Manuel found himself relaxing into it. It probably met some definition of cuddling, which was a horrifying thought. Or maybe not so horrifying. Even though Emmanuel was shivering and a bit sweaty and kept coughing into his neck, Manuel wasn’t exactly _un_ comfortable. The mattress was soft, and he was warm but not too warm, and Emmanuel was _sorry._

Something about the dark gave him a spark of courage, and he placed his left hand on top of the one Emmanuel had put on his shoulder. He could feel Emmanuel smile against his neck, and hum before coughing again. Feeling bolder, Manuel pulled his right arm out from under Emmanuel’s weight and let his hand rest on the nape of his neck, moving his thumb slowly back and forth. He could have sworn he heard a small whine of approval, and he let out a shuddering breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

Nothing about this made any sense, but it also made complete sense. Emmanuel fit against his body like he was made for it, and Manuel finally felt at peace after years of being unable to untangle the mess of emotions that Emmanuel brought out in him.

“You never did say what you wanted that meeting for,” Emmanuel murmured sleepily, and shifted his weight further onto Manuel and nudged his leg in between Manuel’s.

“Don’t bring business into the bedroom, Manu.”

“‘Manu’?”

“Oh don’t be affronted; you always liked it when I called you that. And it’s a bit late for airs and graces when you’re using me as your teddy bear, don’t you think?”

Emmanuel hummed.

Manuel slid his hand under Emmanuel’s t-shirt and began to gently rub circles at the top of his back. “Just get some sleep and we’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay? The world won’t end before then.”

“You’ll propose your… make your… you’ll proposition me tomorrow?”

A hearty laugh escaped from Manuel’s chest. Either Emmanuel was too drowsy to realise what he’d said, or he was far too good at affecting innocence.

“Yes, I’ll proposition you tomorrow, if that’s what you still want.”

“Of course.” It was barely a whisper, and as his breaths evened out in the silence that followed, Manuel realised he’d fallen asleep.

Whatever Emmanuel truly meant, Manuel was unconcerned. He pressed a kiss to his sweaty forehead and tried to commit all of Emmanuel to memory. The slight dryness on the backs of his hands, the soft hairs at the nape of his neck, the iciness of his feet. His slightly cushioned hips, and the angle of his nose that fit so well along Manuel’s neck. Whatever was decided or forgotten in the morning, he would always hold onto these memories as tightly as he held onto the sleeping president.

**Author's Note:**

> any and all feedback welcome!


End file.
